


House Call

by applecameron



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (movie)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-04-28
Updated: 2003-04-28
Packaged: 2017-10-17 13:21:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applecameron/pseuds/applecameron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This story comes complete with sex, a cricket, and pistachio ice cream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	House Call

December 31, 2000.

Grace Holloway walked barefoot out of her front door and down into the trees. Sausalito was gorgeous, the trees mysterious in the gloom, a night pierced only by streetlights and christmas decorations. Completely unlike their day selves. Same as people, probably. She looked up at the stars.

She had promised herself to come out here barefoot, as a reminder, on this night. There was the tree he'd pressed her against, a friendly lunatic in a frock coat who'd taken her breath away, twice, gotten her killed _and_ brought back to life. One heck of a way to ring in the New Year.

"Good thing millenniums happen only once every thousand years, right?" She patted a trunk with one hand.

Grace leaned back against the tree, _the_ tree, and remembered the kiss. His lips against her own. The smell of the outdoors was moist, leafy. Too bad they'd been interrupted by the Eye of Harmony opening and the Master and the end of the world -- who knows where that kiss might have led?

She giggled, fingers pressed against her mouth, and opened her eyes. The Doctor was standing in front of her, with a soft smile on his lips. "Hello again, Grace. Remember me?"

Her jaw dropped, blood rushed from her head, and Grace Holloway fainted. In slow motion, almost, watching herself wibble-wobble to one side and fall. She had enough time to think, "so _this_ is what fainting feels like", and then there was grey coming in from the sides of her vision, and the earth rising up to meet her. Not painful at all. Her eyes shut.

The darkness lasted for just a few seconds, because she suddenly found herself clasped rather tightly to the Doctor's chest, who was heaving her up into his arms and turning towards the house.

"What?"

It was a very faint noise, but he heard her.

"I've got you."

At the steps to her house the weakness in her legs was partly gone to wherever it came from, and she was set down, gingerly. The Doctor's arm stayed firmly around her waist. "Lean on me", he instructed. "I didn't mean to surprise you _quite_ so much."

Keys were plucked from her pocket and he opened the door, manoeuvring them inside.

The Doctor looked around the furnished living room. "Did the ex move back in?"

She laughed, shakily, tugging off her coat. "No." They made for the sofa and Grace plopped down most ungracefully, the Doctor pulling a fluffy throw over her bare feet before seating himself and taking up her hands to rub them. She felt oddly breathless. Was it a side-effect of fainting, or being with the Doctor? "I wasn't expecting to see you again."

"So you bought a sofa. Very sensible."

Laughing made her feel funny. Grace shut her eyes, and concentrated on breathing. His hands clasped hers, and the subtle odor of damp clothing beginning to dry wafted up from the pair of them. She drifted, feeling very safe, for a few minutes, letting her blood pressure come back to normal. Then she opened her eyes, finding herself under the Doctor's scrutiny.

"There." His fingers were long. Like a surgeon's. "You look more like you, now." The difference in his face when he smiled was the difference between night and day. Really breathtaking.

Her lips curled up, not quite a smile, but close. "You have...two hearts."

"Yes, I do." Terribly earnest blue eyes met hers.

She smiled, reaching a hand out to touch a light brown curl, down near his collar. "Two hearts." His hair was silky and fine and she wanted to run her fingers through all of it. "Two hearts."

That netted a smile from him. "Feeling better?"

Grace nodded, then propped an elbow against the cushions and sat up straight. "What are you doing here?" She sat up further. "Don't tell me we have to save the world again!" What was it now? The Master again? An invading space fleet? An asteroid?

He leaned back, a graceful picture of bygone fashion, still holding her left hand captive. "No." Darted a mischievous smile in her direction. "I did that already."

"Already." Grace repeated. She leaned forward. "...It hasn't been a year for you, has it?"

The look on his lean face was suddenly a little sad. "Hm. Time...can be very subjective, Grace."

The peace between them suddenly turned brittle and sharp, so Grace stood and dusted her hands on her slacks. "Tea? Coffee?" She headed for the kitchen.

"Ice cream?"

She tried to busy herself with the making of Things For Guests, but the Doctor had his own ideas about personal space, even when they weren't in an elevator.

It took less than half a minute to irritate Grace Holloway. "Sit down."

"No." Slim fingers curled around her wrist and stopped everything. _But Time doesn't stop, does it? Or does it?_ "Grace. I'm not thirsty. I just came to see you."

The two mugs in her hands survived the feeling of pleasure, just barely making it to the counter before Grace's hand opened. Her lone heart was pulsing fast in her throat.

"I wanted to see you."

"Do -- " she cleared her throat. "Do that again."

Blue eyes flicked off into the middle distance, and then back to her face. "Do what?"

She nodded, mentally rolling her eyes. _Time travel_. _Of course_. "Kiss me."

The Doctor recovered neatly, put a hand to his chest. "Don't tell me I kissed you just now and didn't notice." And then he got _very_ close, two fingers brushing a wisp of hair out of her eyes. "Oh, Grace. That will _never_ do."

Their lips met.

There was no tree this time, Grace found herself pressed backwards to the counter by the sink, unprotesting.

She kissed back.

Quite abruptly, Grace found herself perched on the edge of the sink, with the most amazing/irritating/incredible, not to mention more-than-just-a-little-sexy, man, standing between her open legs, his neck straining under her hand, body in tension against her own. His mouth tasted like alien spices.

It was incredibly hot, all of the sudden, in the kitchen.

They helped one another off with clothing, alternately frantic, then slowing and laughing, until finally arriving at a state of mostly disrobed, on the floor.

Grace laughed. _Dear God, I'm going to have sex on my kitchen floor._ The Doctor grinned back at her and kissed the very tip of her nose.

Long fingers caressed her breasts, stomach, trailed down the side of her hip.

Long fingers slid between her legs -- "Oh!" Pleasure rippled through all the spots he'd just touched.

Slowly, gently, they rolled together and he slid inside, deliciously slow, then faster, then slow again.

At almost exactly the wrong moment, about a minute later, the Doctor spotted a cricket.

"Grace!" Came the interruption.

"What!" He was staring past her head. "What?!"

"What is that?"

Grace craned and saw a cricket against the wall. It was doing something cricket-ish. As if she cared at this _particular_ moment in time.

She growled and thumped her head on the linoleum. It didn't help. "It's a _cricket_."

"What color is it? I want a better look -- "

Grace locked her legs around his waist. "No, you don't."

"Hey!" He levered up but she didn't let go. "Hey! I want to see!"

"Excuse me, Doctor? One of us is going to orgasm if we keep doing what we were doing just now." She put a hand on his chest, over the right-side heart. "I sincerely hope it's me." Fingernails dug into his skin, lightly. "Now would _not_ be a good time for entomological investigations."

"But --"

" _Later_." Grace said it like a curse, her legs tightening further.

The Doctor stopped struggling. "Right! Of course." He looked down at her with that lunatic smile. "Sorry. Now then. Where were we?" This latter was accompanied with the most innocent of blinks.

Grace stuck out her tongue and he grabbed it with his lips, sucking their mouths together for a moment as gentle as a feather on her skin.

She squeezed hard with every muscle she could think of, inside and out, and he shuddered for a moment before returning to their slowly-increasing rhythm. When they kissed again, Grace's mind went out to lunch, possibly with the cricket. She didn't care. There was only this pale body entwined with hers, the two of them making love out of nothing, pulling it out of thin air, but doing it all the same, like magic.

#

Later, they perched in Grace's bed and ate pistachio-nut ice cream ("it's green!" he had exclaimed delightedly) while the Doctor told her a hilarious story she had no doubt was both completely true and completely insane. _Thank God for companions_.

He stayed a whole five hours, probably a Doctor record, before rising and dressing slowly, looking down at her looking up at him from the bed.

He smiled that innocent, seen-eternity-and-still-not-jaded smile. "Places to go, Doctor Holloway. People to see."

"Pasts and futures to rescue." She quipped back, with a smile of her own.

He ran fingers through his hair and shook, hair falling into some semblance of orderly disorder.

The Doctor spoke, seating himself so that he could lay one hand on the warmth of her hip, demurely outlined under the sheet. The other twined with her fingers, and Grace brought his hand to her lips instinctively, brushing his knuckles with her parted mouth.

"I could ask you again, if you think you might say yes, this time."

Grace looked at the Doctor for a long time. 'Amazing Grace' had made up with the hospital and gone back to her job -- after suitable begging from said institution, a raise, and a promise to never destroy medical records _ever again_ \-- but was she _happy_ , saving lives?

Well, wasn't that the same thing as saving the world, one person at a time?

The Doctor was waiting, blue eyes expectant. Grace suspected he knew in advance what her answer would be.

So, she just shook her head. _Say good-bye, Gracie._ And kissed the inside of his palm.

THE END


End file.
